


Awake and Unafraid (This Is The Way They'd Love)

by M0use



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Declarations Of Love, Enthusiastic Consent, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Kid Fic, Mental Health Issues, Multi, Non-Chronological, Prompt Fic, Rock and Roll, Slice of Life, Vignettes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-18
Updated: 2018-04-22
Packaged: 2019-04-04 02:35:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 7,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14010291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/M0use/pseuds/M0use
Summary: Gerard, Lindsey, and Mikey live, together and separately. But mostly together.





	1. As A Hello

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello and hello and hello!  
> title of course from 'Famous Last Words' and 'Dance, Dance'.
> 
> this is meant as a series of real short one-shots, which i started many, maaaaaaany moons ago, and all fit into the same story.  
> it is a love story.  
> the list (tm) what where i got the ideas from, called "the way you said 'i love you'":  
> 1\. As a hello  
> 2\. With a hoarse voice, under the blankets  
> 3\. A scream  
> 4\. Over a cup of tea  
> 5\. Over a beer bottle  
> 6\. On a sunny Tuesday afternoon, the late sunlight glowing in your hair  
> 7\. As a thank you  
> 8\. As an apology  
> 9\. When baking chocolate chip cookies  
> 10\. Not said to me  
> 11\. With a shuddering gasp  
> 12\. When we lay together on the fresh spring grass  
> 13\. In a letter  
> 14\. A whisper in the ear  
> 15\. Loud, so everyone can hear  
> 16\. Over and over again, till it’s nothing but a senseless babble  
> 17\. When the broken grass litters the floor  
> 18\. From very far away  
> 19\. With no space left between us  
> 20\. As we huddle together, the storm raging outside  
> 21\. Over your shoulder  
> 22\. Muffled, from the other side of the door  
> 23\. Through a song  
> 24\. Without really meaning it  
> 25\. In a blissful sigh as you fall asleep  
> 26\. Broken, as you clutch the sleeve of my jacket and beg me not to leave  
> 27\. A taunt, with one eyebrow raised and a grin bubbling at your lips  
> 28\. When I am dead  
> 29\. Slowly, the words dripping from your tongue like honey  
> 30\. Too quick, mumbled into your scarf  
> 31\. In awe, the first time you realised it  
> 32\. In a way I can’t return  
> 33\. On a post-it note  
> 34\. Before we jump  
> 35\. As a goodbye
> 
> please take note of the tags (i'll be adding other warnings to specific chapters if needed). proceed with care.  
> thank you very much for reading.
> 
> -

Mikey hadn’t been back ten minutes when, as promised, Gerard barrelled into his side. Mikey flung his arms out instinctively as counterbalance, but Gee had already wrapped him up. Somehow they didn’t both tip over.  
Lindsey laughed, closing the door behind her. When it clicked shut Gerard lifted his head off Mikey’s shoulder and took his face in between his palms. They kissed solidly while Lindsey put her shoes and jacket away, already having made out with Mikey at traffic stops on the way home.  
They pulled apart gently. “I love you,” Gerard said instead of ‘hello’, also as promised.

“I love you too,” Mikey replied, head swimming and heart full. “Glad I’m home.”


	2. With a hoarse voice, under the blankets

_Dawn Of The Dead_ was one of the best movies of all time. Gerard liked how weird and slimy it all was, and the way the empty shopping mall looked and sounded. He respected the cultural touchstone aspect of it too, of course, but really? Sometimes he just wanted to see some zombies rip people apart.

Mikey did, too, especially when he was sick. He’d gotten hit pretty hard with the post-tour plague flu and had been holed up in his room at home for three days. Today he was finally able to make it out to the living room while cocooned in blankets.  
Gerard had decided to help him celebrate with some Romero and gingerale. Gee was having actual beer, himself, but Mikey was on a strict no-tox until he felt better. He was even off pills.  
Gerard went to get him more soda right when the zombies were finally breaking into the survivor’s hideaway, and by the time he came back half the cast was in pieces. “I forgot how gross all this is _,_ ” Mikey commented from the couch. His voice sounded like shit still.

Gerard winced sympathetically and snuggled back down into the blankets with him. (He was immune to Mikey-germs at this point in his life. Plus he’d recently been exposed to Frank and Otter-germs from the van, which were infinitely worse. Toro germs were also bad but at least he washed his fucking hands more than once a week. Sure, Frank  _showered,_ but hell if the kid ever used a Kleenex that wasn't a shirt sleeve to wipe his nose. If Gerard could survive tour, he could survive anything.) “I know, right? Isn’t it great?”

“It is super great,” Mikey agreed. He shifted around to fit his head onto Gerard’s shoulder. “I love you, Gee. You’re my favourite brother.”

Gerard rolled his eyes and passed Mikey the gingerale can. Mikey grinned.


	3. A scream

****

The opening chords rings out, and the crowd roars, and Mikey’s eyes sting.

Hearing and playing 'Famous Last Words' live is… indescribable. Their music’s always been personal—Helena was unimaginable, in the beginning—but this is the first album where Gerard is singing about _Mikey_ like this, so personally. Painted over in sweeping metaphors and a narrative that’s bigger than all of them.

Mikey’s not the paragon of mental health right now. He’s scared of the stages they all play on and of the crowds beyond them. He's better since the Paramore, since the break, however he quietly doesn't know how much longer he'll last.

But.

But seeing his brother sing like that, for him, screaming out love and despair and fury and hope for everyone to hear, all these kids in their black hair dye and shining eyes, giving _them_ hope, and reminding Mikey every time that they’re past it, that they survived… it helps. As much as anything.


	4. Over a teacup

“I can’t believe someone made David Bowie tea sets,” Mikey said, leaning over Gerard's shoulder to look at the laptop screen.

“I can’t believe I didn’t see them before! Linds, have you seen these?”

Lindsey joined them from where she'd been sitting on their couch. “Have not, actually. Nice painting work.”

“I’m getting them for your birthday, dude, they’re perfect.”

“Isn’t that supposed to be a surprise? Aren’t I supposed to be surprised?”

“I didn’t say it was the only thing you’d get.”

“That’s true, he really didn’t.”

“... you two are conspiring on something, aren’t you.”

Lindsey and Mikey looked at each other, sharing a smile over Gerard's head. “I don’t know what you could ever mean, dear,” Lindsey replied smoothly before he could get too caught on the question.

Mikey cleared his throat. “Dude, but you do like these, don’t you?”

“Sorry-- of course I do, they’re super rad.”

"Super _radical, bro._ ”

“Hey, I sound stupid when you say it like that.”

“I didn’t say it was stupid. Just saying, you know, tubular. Roll tide.”

“I love you both, but that’s for football.”

“Thanks Mikey.”

“Do you think they have coffee mugs?” Gerard asked hopefully, sufficiently distracted now. He eyed up the listings on the side of the page like a seagull eyeing a picnic.

Both of his partners settled in. "Well, we can sure look..."


	5. Over a beer bottle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> real quick depression and alcoholism warning for this one.
> 
> /

****

“I love you, but you can’t fucking do this right now,” Gerard said, and he yanked on the beer again like he was pulling a live wire.

Mikey held on without standing up. If the bottle were a wire it’d spark and send a thousand volts through Mikey, killing him without him having to feel a thing. “Whatever,” he only slurred a little, “I don’t care.”

It was awful because Mikey really didn’t. Or he did, but he couldn’t—couldn’t _do anything_ about it, and wasn’t that the same thing?

Well, wasn’t it?


	6. On a sunny Tuesday afternoon, the late sunlight glowing in your hair

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> once again somewhat heavy and angst! post- summer of like, mentions of the obvious.
> 
> /

He couldn’t stay inside for another minute, so he hadn’t.

 

Outside it was too hot to think much. That was the point. He didn’t want to think.

Mikey hated the house, hated the lawn, hated the street beyond it, hated anything that wasn’t two weeks ago in California, hated himself for acting like a teenager when he was almost twenty-f... _fuck_. When he was his own age. He wanted—needed—to go buy some goddamn liquor, and he hated himself for that, too.  


Mikey was left to stew in his own bad feelings on the front steps for a couple of minutes. Then the door hinge squeaked, because Gerard followed him out. He looked tired. The normal clothes he was wearing looked oddly out of place on him, after a month of either shitty bulletproof vest and drippy eye-makeup or pyjamas. His dyed-black hair revealed its auburn nature in the sunlight.

Mikey turned back around and stared at the street beyond the fence.

He heard Gerard sit down on the step above him, a little away at first, and then scoot closer. Then, the press of his nose and forehead on the top of Mikey’s back. “I love you,” he said into Mikey’s shoulder.

Mikey sat with his arms crossed and his spine slumped. He nodded. He didn’t lean away.

Pete was gone, and Mikey’s chest was full of a hundred different things, none of which he really wanted to name.

A tangible weigh, clinging and dark, loomed on the corner of his brain, heavier even than it’d been before. Something in him was stretched just under too far, and he didn’t know what would cause it to break but knew it was probably coming. Nothing seemed right. 

Still, there was Gerard’s love. At the very least there was that.


	7. As a thank you

“I love you so much!” Mikey laughed, delighted, and threw his arms around Gerard, the framed painting in his other hand with some red wrapping paper still clinging to it.   
The others clap and whoop, Frank and Ray and Bob watching the brothers with fond grins on their faces.

It’s a cute moment, nothing inappropriate about it. It still gets cut from the documentary.


	8. As an apology

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this note also serves as an apology: explicit alcoholism & mentioned pill use, emotional manipulation and Bad Times warning, from gee's corner this time. 
> 
> /

Mikey says I love you like an apology and steps away, his hands curled into fists. But he’s not angry. Gerard knows his little brother well enough to know when Mikey’s angry. This isn’t it. Mikey’s being a stuck-up shit, that’s all.

Gerard just wants a fucking beer, why does this have to be so difficult for everybody around him? He doesn’t have a problem; he’s just dehydrated, it’s only May and already too hot out. Being on tour is tiring even without the heat. Can’t a man get himself a drink when he’s overheated? He just needs to borrow a couple bucks to go and buy a beer. So he asked around for some cash.

No one would give him any, though. Not even his own brother. Mikey’s the last person on the bus except Gerard, and he’s said, “I love you”, but he means it like, “No”. Mikey drinks just as much as him, as any of them, what right does he have to deprive Gerard like this?

Gerard gets angry then. He says things; terrible, spiteful things.

He’d feel shitty about it except he knows Mikey well enough to know that _Mikey_ knows he’s not serious. Gerard doesn’t mean anything he’s ranting right now, not really. He’s just a little dizzy from the pills. It’ll be fine, they’ll wear off in a bit and he’ll be able to stand up and go buy some goddamn booze himself. For now he’ll vent from the floor, cursing and accusing with words that evaporate from existence when they leave his tongue.

Mikey isn’t looking at him anymore, but that’s alright. Gerard can apologise after he’s gotten some more drinks. Mikey will forgive him. He always does.

 


	9. When baking chocolate chip cookies

It takes a village to raise a child, and it takes approximately three competent adults to make that same child a birthday meal. “Five is a big deal,” Gerard was saying while grilling the cheese sandwiches. “It’s when they form their first important social bonds of, like, their peers-- did you know that kids learn more in the first five years of their life than they do in the next ten?”

“We read the books too, babe,” Lindsey said. She’d finished mixing the giant-portion lemonade pitcher, and was looking at Gerard with the same soft smile that she had when Indigo was just learning to walk and she’d been watching Gerard lead their son around by holding his tiny baby hands.

Mikey added, “Seconded. I think it’s ‘cause that’s when they start school, y’know.” He scooped another handful of dried cherries into the cookie batter that he was working on, paused, and added an extra handful of chocolate chips too just to be on the safe side. He mixed and poured, then took the pan and turned around. “Excuse me.”

Both Lindsey and Gee stepped aside so he could put the cookies-to-be in the oven and set the timer.

When he shut the oven door he stood back with them, surveying their domain. It was nice, Mikey thought. The kitchen was bright from the sun streaming in through the windows, and warm from the heat of the stove and oven. Everything smelled really good. Two people he loved most in the world were at his side, and the third (very small) person was still having a nap in the living room.

He felt good. Peaceful.

Without speaking Lindsey looped an arm around his waist, settling her hand comfortably in the right pocket of Mikey’s jeans. Gerard, from her other side, reached over too, stroking Mikey’s back while he kissed Lindsey’s cheek. Mikey pressed his hand to Lindsey’s and leaned into Gerard’s touch. 

“This is too much food,” Lindsey said after a moment.  
“Way too much,” Mikey agreed. “We can’t eat all of this by ourselves.”  
“We still have the cake in the freezer, too,” Gerard mumbled. He grinned sheepishly when they both looked over at him. “Five’s a big birthday?”  
Mikey laughed. “It is. I love you.”  
Gerard’s grin turned into a beam. “I love you, too.”

“And I love you both,” Lindsey said, looking at each of them, “But that’s our son starting to wake up and we need to get this cleaned before he sees and loses his tiny mind.”

Indeed, the confused snuffling sounds of a soon-to-be-five-year-old who just finished a nap were drifting in through the kitchen doorway.

They all unravelled their arms from one another. “I’ll finish the sandwiches,” Gerard said quickly. “Mikey, you’ve got the dishes?”  
“If you don’t need help?” Mikey said to Lindsey. She waved him off on her way to the living room.  


Mikey started filling the sink, scraping the cookie-dough bowl clean with a spoon before setting it to rinse. “Hey,” he said, turning to his brother.  
Gerard looked over his shoulder at Mikey’s offered hand, and then raised his eyebrows at Mikey. He still reached over and completed the high-five.  
Mikey cheered, then put his hand down. “Teamwork,” he explained.  
He grinned and turned back to the sink as Gerard’s expression went from mildly confused to a smile.


	10. Not said to me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one's about birth!
> 
> /

Literally nothing feels real when you’ve been in unending pain for about ten hours, but when the nurse hands her a blanket that’s wrapped around an actual human child, something in Lindsey’s head clicks back into place and it all feels so real as to be horrifying. It might’ve been horrifying.

It isn't. The rush of looking at her son— _her son—_ is like the best high she’d ever had.

She can’t move very much on the hospital bed, but Gerard presses the button to lift the end of the cot up, and Lindsey re-adjusts the baby in her arms. She’s crying. The baby was crying when he was handed to her, but quieted once he heard her heartbeat again.  
She kisses his tiny, super red, wrinkly forehead. His skin feels like the fuzz on a peach under her lips. He smells absolutely amazing.

“I love you,” she whispers to her son.  
Beside her, Gerard laughs a little, full of wonder. He’s kneeling by the bed and he looks like he also hasn’t slept all night, which he hasn’t, because he was with her. He was definitely crying at some point, too, but now he just looks calm.  
It’s good that two of them are, Lindsey guesses. She turns her head more towards him and Gerard gets the point and kisses her. It’s a regular, every-day kiss, but it feels heavier now; more solid.

“You did amazing,” Gerard murmurs when they pull apart. “You’re amazing.”

“Thanks,” Lindsey replies. She looks back at her son and lifts him, a little, so that his dad can see him better.

“He’s so _small_ ,” Gerard says, hushed. "Are they all always so small?”

“I have no idea,” Lindsey replies. She laughs a little, because she can’t not, and Indigo stirs in his sleep. It’s the first time she’s thought of him using his name. They hadn’t asked for the sex at the usual ultrasounds; they didn’t want to know. But they had a son. Indigo Lee Way. It was unbelievable.

“They want us to sign papers, and stuff,” Gerard says quietly.

“What?”

“For his birth certificate. And my mom will be here soon. I called yours, too, she’s coming as early as she can tomorrow. I’ll take care of it.”    
“Okay,” Lindsey says. She’s too exhausted to even think of what any of that means, so she just lets the words wash over her. 

Gerard touches her hand, just very lightly, and holds on.  
She smiles at him, and Gerard smiles back. He leans in to kiss her and then Indigo like they’re the most important people in the world.

And they are. The two of them are the most important, amazing people in Lindsey’s entire world, and they’re going to make an amazing family.


	11. With a shuddering gasp

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one is about sex! ("finally!", some of you say; i know, i know.)
> 
> /

Out of all positions this is their favorite: one person kneeling behind, one on their hands and knees, one face-up on the bed, and all of them moving together. This time Mikey’s the middle piece, Lindsey underneath him. Gerard’s fucking him slowly and evenly, rolling his hips with his hands planted solidly on Mikey’s shoulder and left hip, curled over his spine.

Mikey and Lindsey aren’t fucking right now but he still had a condom on for safeguarding. It’s almost not noticeable. This is the second round and Lindsey had got off twice in the first so she’s languid and happy, and they’re kissing like there’s nothing else in the world. Her and Mikey’s lips and tongues meet again and again, his hand (that isn’t holding himself up) on her breast or curled in her long glossy hair. The whole bed is rocking with them. Mikey feels like he’s dizzy and underwater, everything past Lindsey’s face and the pillow a blur, but nothing beyond her and Gerard mattering. Their bedroom is hot, and they’re all covered in sweat. Mikey’s mouth is probably still shiny with Lindsey’s come. It can’t’ve been more than several minutes, but it feels like it’s been forever. Nothing before this. Nothing after.

But eventually Gerard’s thrusts lose their smooth rhythm, and Lindsey starts urging him on, or both of them.

Mikey burrows his head into her shoulder and _gasps_ when he finally feels Gerard tense up and shake flush against him. Lindsey’s knees snap close to his waist. He comes at the contact, feeling the two of them around him.  
  
They rest a moment. Gerard pulls out slowly, ties his condom off and chucks it in the basket by the bed, and then collapses on Mikey’s slick back. He carefully rolls the two of them sideways so they can all lie on the mattress instead of on each other. He’s holding Mikey around the bottom of his ribs and kissing Mikey’s neck and shoulder, hitting some places Lindsey had, almost feverishly, gasping a little to get his air back. “I love you,” he mumbled, “God I love you so much.”

Lindsey hums in agreement, her mouth pressed to Mikey’s again since she’d rolled over with them. They’re still bracketing him, the both of them, and someone’s pulled up the blanket so they’re not getting awkwardly cold in the post-sex chill in the air.

Mikey’s dizziness has gotten a little worse and he wonders, fleetingly, if he’s dehydrated. It’s been a few months they’ve all been _together_ -together but this is still a little strange and almost overwhelming, having both of their attentions.   
He doesn’t know if they were always this cuddly and murmury after sex or if it was a new development just for him. But he likes it, the warmth and skin and bubbles of sound.

  
It makes it easier to ignore the nattering in the back of his head that insists he’s too awful of a person for them to ever want him, this is just a cheap sex thing and nothing else, he’s an experiment that’ll be dropped off to the side any day now.  
The depression and anxiety talking. It's just a voice. He knows it’s not true, and in moments like these, he doesn't even consider it being so.

Gerard is still whispering softly into the nape of his neck, his fingers stroking along the top of Mikey’s thighs. Lindsey is reaching over his waist to Gerard, pulling them all closer. They both love him. They all just had pretty spectacular sex, and they both love him.

Mikey leans back into Gerard’s embrace and smiles into Lindsey’s neck in the dark.


	12. When we lay together on the fresh spring grass

Their neighborhood was as quiet as it ordinarily got, and the sky was bright. Mikey sat on the back stoop for a while looking up. After a minute of consideration he moved to sit onto the lawn. Better vantage point. If he got shot or run over by a stray biker or whatever, so be it. A man had to be alone with his thoughts from time to time.

Not  _too_ alone though. The back door’s rusted hinge squelched.

Gerard came down the steps and sat beside him, laying back on the ground with his hands folded over his belly. After a minute, he started rubbing Mikey’s back with one hand.  
Mikey wasn’t upset, but it was nice to be close to his brother. He shifted on the grass.

“It’s been almost a year,” he said, out loud, because it’d been ticking down in his head for days now. _Since Japan,_ he didn't say.

Gerard’s hand stilled, and he sighed. “Yeah.”

If Mikey knew his brother—and he did—Gerard was going through the twelve steps in his head again. But Mikey wasn’t looking for another apology. He put his arm around Gerard’s shoulder and kissed his temple.

Gerard huffed a small laugh. He put his arm the rest of the way around Mikey’s waist and squeezed back.

Mikey leaned into it. He was still shit-scared of Gee relapsing, and he’d barely gotten his own use under control, but it was easier off tour. They still had a couple weeks of relative peace before Warped ‘05. God willing, it’d be better than the last one. Mikey hoped so.

“I love you,” Mikey said.

“I know,” Gerard replied.


	13. In a letter

Gerard had dedicated Umbrella Academy’s first trade paperback _To my wife Lindsey, for being my umbrella,_ and Mikey had smiled to see it.

Gerard’s dedication in the second issue was _For my brother Mikey, and all the Saturdays spent reading comics, firing rayguns and saving the world,_ and if Mikey’s hands shook when he held it in the bookstore then no one could prove it.


	14. A Whisper In The Ear

It was their first real show ever. Their first fucking not-in-someone’s-living-room-or-their-basement show fucking ever. Ever.

Mikey had lost count of the beers he’d had. He stumbled through the cramped bar, trying to find his band, and instead ran smack into his brother.

By some miracle they managed not to fall over. Gerard laughed and tangled his arms around Mikey, just at the stage of drunk where he was happy to be around people. He must’ve felt Mikey shaking, though. He pulled back for a minute, looking at Mikey with wobbly concern.

“I think I’m dying,” Mikey said. He hadn’t been able to breathe right for half an hour.

Gerard frowned and shook his head, pointing at his ears. The first band on the roster, of which they were third, was rocking out loud only a few dozen feet away. “What?” Gerard half-yelled.

Mikey pressed his lips together and shook his head too. He tried to pull back from Gee’s embrace, but Gerard was quick to pull him in again.

His sibling-intuition apparently gave him the information his actual hearing couldn’t. “It’ll be okay,” Gerard said right in Mikey’s ear, the sharp exhales from his breath making Mikey wince. “I love you. We can do this!” He was talking alternatingly too quiet and too loud, but the gist of it all still got through.

Despair filled Mikey’s head like beer foam. _I can’t do it,_ he wanted to insist.

But Gerard was pulling him towards the pile of their gear that they’d hoisted out from the van at the beginning of the night, and holy shit, that’s where everyone else had been. Frank was just as drunk as them but hyper with it; he threw himself at them in a tackle, laughing like a hyena. “Let’s fucking do this, motherfuckers,” he shouted, then richocheted backwards to bother Cortez.

Gerard squeezed Mikey’s shoulders one more time and then let go, leaving Mikey standing on his own.

Ray was already practicing warm-ups. He passed Mikey his bass with a nod.

Her solid weight grounded Mikey a little. He adjusted his stance so he wouldn’t fall over and tried a few chords. They sounded alright. He still couldn’t breathe, but his fingers could play.  
Mikey squinted his eyes closed and concentrated on ‘Halos’. Their first real fucking show ever.

He couldn’t let his band down, and he wasn’t about to. They’d fucking do this.


	15. Loud, so everyone can hear

Mikey was making coffee when his phone buzzed on the counter. It was a tweet notification from Gerard, letting the internet know that he loved his beautiful and amazing wife.

Mikey set his cell down again, heart pinching uncomfortably.  
He wasn’t jealous. Lindsey was absolutely amazing and beautiful, and Gerard was right to love her. Mikey loved the hell out of them both. He didn’t doubt that they loved him back, and he knew that people’s perception of them didn’t mean anything in their actual lives.

It just hurt, sometimes, that Linds and Gee were the ones who got to be visible in public. No one knew what Mikey meant to them, what all three of them meant to one another. No one ever would.


	16. Over and over again, until it's nothing but a senseless babble

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> warning for talking about 9/11 in this one.
> 
> -

Gerard had come home that day way earlier than usual. Mikey had made it back first and no, Mom, he didn’t know where Gee had been but he couldn’t’ve— his work wasn’t that close to the towers, it wouldn’t’ve—

Mikey was glad to see him.

He had been newly twenty-one but not new to drinking, so as soon as his brother had gotten safely through the door Mikey had hugged him as tightly as he could and then handed him a shot of rum in a bevelled glass, the same one Nonna had drank out of seconds before.

Gerard ignored it. He went through their house to the kitchen and then threw himself into Mom’s waiting arms.  


Mikey followed, at a loss, still holding the glass.

Elena was also in the kitchen. She got up from the table when she saw Mikey come in. It gave her some difficulty, which scared Mikey. Somehow out of all the shit that was going down, her slowness was what scared him. Maybe he was in shock.  
She didn’t give him time to dwell on it. She opened her arms too, and he folded into them, unthinking, and went with her when she gently pulled him over to the rest of their family.

They all huddled together, sides to sides. Either Mom or Gerard was shaking. Gerard had his head on their mom’s shoulder and was mumbling endlessly into her shirt. It took Mikey a second to realize he was saying “I love you”.

Mikey’s heart panged, and he shuddered, pressing closer into the huddle when Nonna hugged him a little more tightly.  
“We’re alright,” Mom was saying to Gerard, her hoarse voice seeming more strained than usual. “We’re alright, sweetheart.” She reached up to Mikey’s shoulder and squeezed it, reassuringly. “Everyone’s fine here.”

She meant the words as a comfort. But they weren’t fine, not really. They wouldn’t be for a long, long time.


	17. When broken grass* litters the floor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *note: that typo isn’t mine, it’s from the original post. clearly this is meant to say ‘broken glass’ but i thought broken grass was funnier.  
> -

Since they've been family now for a few years, Lindsey can admit to herself that part of the reason she loves Mikey is that if she didn’t, sometimes, she’d have to rip his throat out. Some of the things Mikey does, how he does them, how he talks; it can all make a lady like herself murderous.

But then they’d all be dead. If she killed Mikey then she’d have to kill Gerard too, because he’d be irreparably heartbroken, and then she’d need to end her own life, because why the hell would she give up her soulmate that way? And then who would look after Indigo, and the golden retriever in her old dog-age? Donna, who was wonderful as a grandmother and a mom-in-law but who lived back in New Jersey. Lindsey won’t subject her amazing son and beloved dog to Jersey winters.  
  
There are other things about Mikey James Way that make her not want to kill him, thankfully.  
  


One of those reasons show up when Gerard is away from home doing press for Umbrella Academy. The house is something of a wreck, Indigo is teething, and Lindsey is trying to juggle phone calls with her band and their label with taking care of a baby and feeling pretty fucking overwhelmed.  
Mikey comes through the door after meeting up with some guys he knew from the record a while back, takes one look around, and offers to call Tabitha—their babysitter of choice—for her so they can go out and “get some coffee”.  
  
Lindsey is happy enough to do it. She feels kind of bad for dumping Indi on Tabitha when the baby’s teething—and as always, _always,_ is conscious that she’s become the Celebrity Mom people love to hate the fuck out of on tabloid websites—but the woman’s both well-prepared and well-paid, and it’s not like Lindsey is leaving her with him for a weekend on no notice. It'll just be a couple hours.  
Mikey takes the baby for a minute and does his own phone juggling. Lindsey goes outside and aggressively chews down several nicotine gum pieces.

Everything is settled in about an hour, and they get in the car together. When the house is out of sight Lindsey breathes a little easier.  
Mikey had gallantly offered to drive, so he picks the music; inoffensive classic rock (well, not offensive to Lindsey). His aviator sunglasses catch more light than they seem to dim. Kudos to him, he is mostly sensible on the road.  
  


They stop at a place Lindsey hasn’t been to before. It does seem to be a coffee place, if the large poster covering most of the front window is any indication. The drawing doesn’t say the name, but there’s a cat curled up in a huge cup. The cat looks warm and happy.  
Lindsey is sweating a little in Gerard’s denim jacket. She stares at the poster for a minute while Mikey pays the parking fee with his phone app.  
When he’s done he puts his phone away and fidgets with his jacket for a second before walking up to the restaurant door. “I think you’ll like it,” he says hopefully, and holds the door open for her.  
_Is this a date?_ Lindsey wants to ask for a second. “Thanks,” she says instead, stepping inside.

The place is decently busy when they get in. It turns out to be half an animal shelter and half a deli. There’s a line of customers leading up to the granite counter, a blackboard menu fixed to the wall behind the cashiers, a few tables, chairs and ceiling fans. There’s also at least ten cats winding their way between all of the people and sleeping on a bunch of the cubbies that are attached to the walls. What appears to be catnip, which Lindsey would forever think of as feline weed, is all over the floor in one corner of the restaurant, and the majority of the animals congregate around it. People are sprinkling more from plastic bags that the café workers/animal handlers pass to them, giggling gleefully as the cats lose their tiny minds.  
Lindsey stares for a minute. Then she pulls out her phone and sends a video of some of it to Gee. He likes cats but would probably die if he came here with them to a sit-down lunch. As in, literally, physically die.

“I come here sometimes to get my animal fix,” Mikey mentions, stepping up beside her. He’s somehow slipped past the line and is clutching a mug to his chest. At her raised eyebrow, he nods over at the opposite corner of the restaurant, where two plates and a mug sit alone. “French vanilla, right?”  
“Yeah. Thank you,” Lindsey says again, a little surprised. She means it more this time.

They go over to the table together. "I meant that," he says as they sit down. "I mean, I love Gerard, obviously, but I miss my cat."  
Lindsey nodded. "There are some hypoallergenic cats," she says, and then took a sip of the French vanilla. It's delicious. She adds a mental tally to the good points of this place in her head.

"So, is that why you took me out here?" Lindsey asks after she drinks some more coffee. "To have an excuse to see the cats." She refrains from saying  _to see some pussy_ only just barely, because she can see two kids playing with a large tabby a few feet away from their table.  
“No, uh, just. We don’t really hang out or anything, you know?" Mikey studies his own mug as though it contains the secrets of the universe, and then he does a half-movement towards his face of a person who'd worn glasses for a lot of his life but didn't anymore, and then looks up to match her gaze.  
He's blushing? He is blushing just a bit. Lindsey pauses in her rapturous enjoyment of the coffee to stare at him.

He smiled after a moment, and it was a very cute, very Way smile. "What kind of movies do you like?"

 

 _... well, shit,_ Lindsey realizes. This  _is_ a date. An actual, honest to God date. That's surprising.

It gives her a bit of pause.

  
Mikey and Gerard love each other and always have. Now it’s different, obviously, but they’ve still always known each other. 

Lindsey and Mikey don’t have that. For all that they’re all, technically, Ways, she isn’t close to Mikey in the ways that he and Gerard are. He doesn’t share what Gerard and Lindsey have, either. It’ll take some work to make them stick.  
She isn’t at all a stranger to hard work.  
Life is about balance, she figures. Love between the two of them themselves is not a particularly easy balance to achieve, but she’s willing to try, if this is something that Mikey wants. 

"Weird art shit," she replies finally. Mikey's Way smile gets wider.


	18. From very far away

Skype sex was always a little weird. Even without the audio delays and the extreme anti-sexiness of the program freezing up and then shutting down point-blank while a loud ' _RRRRRRRRRRR'_ buzz looped endlessly into his headphones, it was like watching porn. For Mikey, that felt a little unsettling, like nothing was real and he couldn’t trust his own surroundings. He didn’t like it.  
But between the three of their regular occupations, taking care of Indi at home, plus him staying in Boston to record the EP and Lindsey going touring soon and Gerard in comic meetings all the time, video calls were the best way they had come up with to work this out.

Watching Lindsey and Gerard move together on the screen, even with their voices muted from the microphone, made his hands itch. They’d left the lights on, which normally they wouldn’t do. For him. The grainy quality of the webcam wasn't anything to write home about (ha), but the people and room on the other side were all intimately familiar to him. That helped a little with the unreal feeling, that everything was how he remembered it.   
He had to lay far enough back on the bed for them to see him, too. Lying sideways with your pants open wasn’t the most comfortable position ever but any farther would pull his headphones out of the laptop. It bothered him for the first couple of minutes, until the show really started and it left Mikey's thoughts.

When his partners had both finished they smiled at each other and then lazily turned towards the camera, by which time Mikey’s fingers were already curled around his dick and his eyes had closed of their own accord. Through his headphones he heard the slightly tinny sound of sheets rustling and then their sex-coarsened voices murmuring encouragements and, in Lindsey’s case, laughing at the way he was biting his lip. Her laugh sent little bubbles of happiness up Mikey’s chest, and he felt himself smiling instead.   
“Come on,” they both crooned as they watched him. "For us.”

And he did, with an out-loud gasp that he couldn’t smother. At that point he couldn’t care anymore about who may or may not be listening through the thin hotel walls. Only who was listening through the camera.

 

“We love you, babe,” Gerard said after Mikey has relaxed a little in the afterglow.

Mikey opened his eyes to see them both carefully framed, looking at him warmly.

They were all careful not to use names, in case the call was secretly broadcasting to the entire internet somehow. Not that that was likely, but technology was messed up and weirder things had happened. The scandal of a rockstar couple apparently having long-distance threesome was, well, scandalous, but if the third was revealed to be a blood relative of one of them, shit could get ugly. So they always stuck to sweetened nicknames. It had used to bother Mikey a little, but it didn’t right then.   
“I love you too,” he said. On an impulse he put his (non-fluid-covered) hand up to the screen and held it there, watching Gee and then Lindsey do the same.

For a moment, the distance between them all felt a little smaller.


	19. With no space left between us

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> jumping backwards through the timeline again, this chapter features its own remix, bc sometimes you gotta tell a story twice~ (note that this whole series is technically telling the same story more than twice, and here we go)  
> -

_Oh._  
  
“I just thought,” Mikey started, blinking rapidly in the dark of the hotel room.

“Thought?” Gerard asked. He would’ve been mumbling it into Mikey’s shoulder a second ago, but when Mikey had asked his question Gerard had immediately stilled and pulled back, sliding off of Mikey so he could look at him from the empty side of the bed. The light from the window reflected in his eyes. They were huge, like a startled cat’s. “How could you think that?”

A familiar feeling of stupidity and accompanying self-loathing was swelling in Mikey’s head, bringing with it the equally familiar and awful buzzing in his hands and the inability to breathe. But combating it was a giddy, flooding sense of relief. His throat clicked while he swallowed. “Before,” he tried to explain. “We’ve never, like, it’s never been just us. So. I thought it might’ve, you know. That you might’ve been doing this for Lindsey, not just because..."  _You want me, too,_ he didn’t say out loud.  
Gee was silent for a second. “Oh my god, Mikey.” The blankets rustled as he rolled himself on top of Mikey again.

Mikey huffed a little under the weight of him but at the same time his arms went up and around his brother instinctively, holding him as close as possible. (His fingers slot in line with the gaps in Gerard’s ribs, newly visible, and Mikey worried, but it’s not like he can talk and he can’t do anything about it now.)  
Gerard ignored Mikey’s huff. He took Mikey’s face in his hands, holding himself up by his elbows so they were at least somewhat eye-to-eye. Like an impulse he kissed Mikey’s chin and then his throat. He pulled back to look Mikey in the eye again. “I’m going to say this as clearly as I can. I love Lindsey,” he said earnestly, “And I love you, very much.” He punctuated this with another kiss.  
Mikey’s arms tightened.  
“And,” Gerard continued, “I really like having sex with you. I want to just as much when we’re alone as when Lyn’s here too. I actually want to make love with you right now.” He smoothed a strand of hair out of Mikey’s eyes. “Because I love you so much. Alright?”  
Mikey had laughed without sound, and now needed to squeeze his eyes shut so the tears welled up in them didn’t spill over and freak his brother out. “Alright,” he managed.

Gerard pressed his face into the front of Mikey’s shoulder. “I love you, Mikey Way,” he mumbled, a little muffled and morose-sounding.  
“I love you too.” He moved his own hand from Gee’s back to his long hair, cupping the back of his head. He knew he was probably going to have red dye on his fingers tomorrow, but it wasn’t like that was unusual on the bus since tour had begun. It wasn’t like anyone would care—least of all Gerard. Who loved him, thank fucking God.

Mikey exhaled through his nose, fighting down the last of the panic attack.

  
They both just breathed together for a while.

 

-&-

 

_Shit._

“I just thought,” Mikey started, blinking rapidly. Gerard could see the shine on his eyes in the moonlight coming in through the curtain, and it hurt his heart.  
“Thought?” He said, voice higher than it usually would be. He’d rolled off Mikey a second ago and already missed the warmth and feel of Mikey’s body underneath him, but the combined worry and fear had him paralyzed. God, he hoped he wouldn’t make him cry.  
He wanted to apologize, but apologize for what, he didn’t know. Instead he burst out, “How could you think that?”  
How badly could Gerard have fucked up that Mikey, _Mikey_ of all people, didn’t understand how much he meant to Gerard?

His brother’s throat clicked loudly in the small hotel room as he swallowed. ““Before,” he explain haltingly. “We’ve never, like, it’s never been just us. So. I thought it might’ve, you know. That you might’ve been doing this for Lindsey, not just because…”  
_You want me, too,_ Gerard finished the sentence in his head. He laid there for a second, stunned. His heart was splintering now. “Oh my god, Mikey.”

He pushed himself up on his elbow and rolled over, back onto Mikey. The blankets rustled around his legs. Mikey huffed a little, but Gerard ignored it in favour of taking his face gently in his hands. He kissed Mikey’s chin because it was there, and his throat because he could. Words ran through his head, chasing themselves; eventually he settled on the truest, simplest ones.

He wanted to say this as clearly as possible, and he told Mikey as much. “I love Lindsey,” he started, because that had never not been true. Ever since he’d met her, he loved her. But that was only half the sentence. “And I love you, very much,” he continued.

Gerard couldn’t even quantify how much he loved him. He’d known him since he was a baby; he remembered watching Mikey walk for the first time, when Gerard was still only just toddling around successfully himself. He remembered both of them getting their first guitar. He remember watching Mikey grow, change, go through so many struggles to become the man he is today—surviving everything, managing his problems, creating things. Gerard had known him his whole life. His _whole life._ He was so, almost unspeakably proud of him.  
All of that was a little too high-minded to bring into the bed when Mikey was naked underneath him, looking uncertain and almost hurt.

He felt Mikey’s arms squeeze his sides a little more. Gerard kissed him again to bridge the silence.

“And, I really like having sex with you,” he continued.Seemed almost, fucking, _gauche_ to just say it out loud like that, but he felt Mikey’s half-exhale of a laugh through his stomach. Thank fucking God. He smiled too, almost tripping over his words now. “I want to just as much when we’re alone as when Lyn’s here too. I actually want to make love with you right now.” He smoothed some of Mikey’s bangs away from his face. “Because I love you so much. Alright?”

Mikey’s eyes were shining again. He squeezed them shut for a second. “Alright,” he croaked.

Gerard’s head spun with relief. Dizzy from it, but so grateful, he pressed his head to Mikey’s shoulder in a kind of mouthless kiss. “I love you, Mikey Way,” he whispered again, unable to help himself. Needing to say it out loud.  
Mikey’s hand gently pet through in his hair. “I love you, too."


End file.
